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HRD Ministry has added 95 seats to the existing pool of the National Institute of Technology (NITs) for this year only to accommodate some deserving candidates who were denied admission in the B Tech programme due to a software glitch during the counselling process.

These candidates were left out from seat allotment despite having higher merit than those admitted. Sources said HRD Minister M M Pallam Raju exercised his powers to create the additional seats. The special provision is only for this academic year (2013-14).

The students were not at fault as the goof-up happened because of the software programming, they said. "These (additional) seats are purely supernumerary and temporary in nature and shall be valid only for the academic year 2013-14 as a one time measure," the HRD ministry said in its letter to the chairman of central seat allocation board (CSAB) and NIT Rourkela director Sunil Kumar Sarangi.

The goof-up took place during the third phase of the counselling process. It happened at a time when confusion prevailed among the students over securing a seat in the NITs under the new admission procedure where 60 per cent weightage is given to JEE-Main and 40 per cent to board marks.

CBSE had conducted the JEE-Main and announced a merit list of 4.5 lakh candidates. CSAB had conducted counselling on the basis of the list and allocated seats last month.